For students who are going up in the world ... high-rise designer digs

Friday 10 September 2010 08:46 BST

Stylish studying: an interior at Urbanest’s Hoxton development, which has a roof terrace. Rooms start at £220 a week

It's the development that will turn the concept of student digs on its head.

A 27-storey designer tower block promises to become the "best student accommodation in London" when it opens in three years at the heart of the King's Cross redevelopment.

It will provide 657 bedrooms for students of the Central St Martins College of Art and Design, which is moving to King's Cross from Bloomsbury next September.

Plans for the block — which will be run by Urbanest, soon to be Australia's largest provider of student accommodation — have just been submitted to Camden council. Though permission for the wider regeneration scheme was granted in 2006, a new approval for the tower block is needed because it exceeds the 14-storey maximum already agreed.

Urbanest already has one block in London — at East Road, Hoxton. That building has "green" energy, a roof terrace, common room with wide-screen TV and communal laundry. All rooms are fitted with modern furniture.

Prices have yet to be announced for King's Cross but they start at £220 a week for a room in Hoxton, and £265 for a studio flat.

The King's Cross tower, offering panoramic views, is not due to be completed until the start of the 2013/14 academic year. Designed by Glenn Howells Architects, the stone-clad block will range in height from 14 to 27 storeys.

It will be managed and owned by Urbanest on a long lease from the King's Cross Central partnership, the private consortium behind the 15-year transformation of the 67-acre site.

A total of 4,500 students and 1,000 staff will be based at St Martins. Robert Evans, from King's Cross Central, pledged "a student housing building of exceptional quality".